Hot Club de Montevideo

Cecil Taylor was the grand master of free jazz piano. "All the Notes" captures in breezy fashion the unconventional stance of this media-shy modern musical genius, regarded as one of the true giants of post-war music. Seated at his beloved and battered piano in his Brooklyn brownstone the maestro holds court with frequent stentorian pronouncements on life, art and music.

Jake Blues, just released from prison, puts his old band back together to save the Catholic home where he and his brother Elwood were raised.

Set to a classic Duke Ellington recording "Daybreak Express", this is a five-minute short of the soon-to-be-demolished Third Avenue elevated subway station in New York City.

Born on a sharecropping plantation in Northern Florida, Ray Charles went blind at seven. Inspired by a fiercely independent mom who insisted he make his own way, He found his calling and his gift behind a piano keyboard. Touring across the Southern musical circuit, the soulful singer gained a reputation and then exploded with worldwide fame when he pioneered coupling gospel and country together.

A documentary featuring archive footage to celebrate the 100th birth of jazz legend Louis Armstrong.

In 1955, on his report, a medical examiner wrote in the box: age, “about 53 years”. Charlie Parker nicknamed Bird just died, at 34. His death will be the ransom of a life that was not denied to the excesses or the consuming flame of genius. His wildest improvisations will open the door to future jazzmen. Between shadow and light this film will pay tribute to one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century.

Danny 'Sweet Touch' Caputo is a young sax player on the verge of crowning his life's dream, to play in the festival that will send him to the top amongst the jazz greats. With just 50 minutes standing between him and his consecration, as he runs over his last simple question more to pass time than anything else. Danny tries to answer, but instead finds himself projected into another world, one populated by the sensual and very real ghosts of his past...

Ella Fitzgerald visited Australia back in 1960. Gracefully stepping up to the microphone for the celebrated television event 'The BP Super Show', hosted by musician and entertainer Horrie Dargie, Fitzgerald delivered a mellifluous set of legendary songs in an intimate concert setting at The Embers Nightclub in Toorak Road, South Yarra Victoria. This rarely seen B&W television treat is considered to be one of the earliest audio-visual recordings of the 'First Lady of Song', backed by the smooth sounds of the Lou Levy Quartet. Beside Fitzgerald's performance of 14 memorable Jazz and Blues classics, the program also contains original BP musical interludes and jingles from the Horrie Dargie Quartet.

A music documentary made with Sun Ra.

In the late 1990s, iconic photographer Bruce Weber barely managed to convince legendary actor Robert Mitchum (1917-97) to let himself be filmed simply hanging out with friends, telling anecdotes from his life and recording jazz standards.

During the summer of 1980, the American jazz concert pianist Kazzrie Jaxen writes a 16 pages long letter to director Ingmar Bergman. His film 'From the Life of the Marionettes' have sent her on a dramatic inner journey, making her realize that she is not alone in her own body.

In the Swedish city of Lethe, people from different walks of life take part in a series of short, deadpan vignettes that rush past. Some are just seconds long, none longer than a couple of minutes. A young woman remembers a fantasy honeymoon with a rock guitarist. A man awakes from a dream about bomber planes. A businessman boasts about success while being robbed by a pickpocket, and so on. The absurdist collection is accompanied by Dixieland jazz and similar music.

Stop for Bud is Jørgen Leth's first film and the first in his long collaboration with Ole John. […] they wanted to "blow up cinematic conventions and invent cinematic language from scratch". The jazz pianist Bud Powell moves around Copenhagen -- through King's Garden, along the quay at Kalkbrænderihavnen, across a waste dump. […] Bud is alone, accompanied only by his music. […] Image and sound are two different things -- that's Leth's and John's principle. Dexter Gordon, the narrator, tells stories about Powell's famous left hand. In an obituary for Powell, dated 3 August 1966, Leth wrote: "He quite willingly, or better still, unresistingly, mechanically, let himself be directed. The film attempts to depict his strange duality about his surroundings. His touch on the keys was like he was burning his fingers -- that's what it looked like, and that's how it sounded. But outside his playing, and often right in the middle of it, too, he was simply gone, not there."

In this short film from 1967, filmmaker Henry English attempts to place a context around saxophonist and composer Marion Brown’s flurries of notes and expression. Juxtaposed against performance footage and scenes from Brown’s environment are the musician’s spoken observations in which he, in a gentle Georgia accent, explains some of who he is and how his chosen form of expression (wild, free lines of spontaneous sound) may not be as alien as it must have seemed in 1967. (Austin Film Society)

An egotistical saxophone player and a young singer meet on V-J Day and embark upon a strained and rocky romance, even as their careers begin a long uphill climb.

A meditation on what it means to maintain continuity with the past — told through the kaleidoscopic journey of a young drummer who must learn how to guide a multi-generational band into the future after being named their new bandleader.

Recorded Live at Tokyo International Forum Hall A on December 9th, 2007

Ezra Collective has already shaken up the British jazz scene- Now the quintet has arrived on the continent, taking Paris' Ground Control by storm with the exuberance of their second album Where I'm Meant To Be.

Jack DeJohnette - Drums, Herbie Hancock - Keyboards, Dave Holland - Bass, Pat Metheney - Guitars. For the first time, these four masterful musicians come together to form a jazz group most people would never expect to see happen. Taking their collaborations around the world, they toured Canada, Europe, Japan, and the United States, performing concerts and festivals to sold out audiences and rave reviews. On June 23, 1990, this extraordinary group performed two concerts at the Mellon Jazz Festival at the Philadelphia Academy of music. Both shows were filmed and have been carefully edited to create a technically flawless video of a truly "once in a lifetime" event. All of the songs were selected with great care, as might be expected from a band of this caliber.

The history of American popular music runs parallel with the history of a Russian Jewish immigrant family, with each male descendant possessing different musical abilities.